Sour crop?????

Ddurlak

In the Brooder
9 Years
Apr 14, 2010
28
0
32
Land O Lakes, Florida
I lost my barred rock today due to sour crop, I think. The crop felt like a water balloon. This was her third day like this and after reading several posts on the topic I tried massaging her crop while holding her head down. She started vomiting right away, mostly cloudy water like. We did this twice then gave her some ACV and water. When we returned with some yogurt, she sounded like she was gurgling . We massaged her crop again and a clump of something bright yellow came out and she started flapping her wings violently. We put her down and she fell over kicking and her eyes closed. Even though we massaged and picked her upright so she could breath, it appears she drowned from this fluid.
My question to you is 2 part.
1. Did I do this massage wrong?
2. How do you prevent sour crop in the first place?
 
I'm sorry you lost her. That sounded really difficult for you all. I doubt that you massaged wrong, but I suppose she could have aspirated some fluid from the vomiting.

People generally recommend that chickens have enough grit in their diet to break down food in the crop to avoid blockages. Crop stasis can still occur in rare occasions if something gets stuck in there. I'm not sure what the yellow clump was that came out of her.
 
Sorry for your loss... I hate to be the one to say it, but it does sound like she aspirated the fluid and died from it, the stress of being handled or both.

Don't be too hard on yourself, she probably had something else going on that caused the crop to stop emptying and finding the cause of that "something" can be very difficult.

-Kathy
 
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